The Snow

Chapter 8,

VII

Dwayne had woken up at 9:00AM to the sound of his alarm clock. Though the college classes were over, he still had his afternoon high school classes, as required. Because of that he had an appointment with the director at the college this morning for a little personal training.

There had been no cat fights last night; Dog had been kept inside all night. Probably would be for a while now, if not indefinitely. Veterinarian visits were expensive. As a result the cat had cried and meowed and purred against the back door begging for his freedom. Kelsey and Dwayne both realized there was no keeping the cat inside all the time; but they could handle keeping the cat in at night when the fights seemed to happen. Dog was just too acclimated to being outside to be made an inside cat. After a few hours of his vocal displeasure, seeing he would not get what he wanted, he had positioned himself into a dark unsocial mood.

Dwayne readied himself for the day and fixed a quick breakfast, boiled eggs in Tabasco with a cup of yogurt on the side. Danny Fairbanks was another half hour in arriving and when Dwayne left to drive with her, Dog shot out the door between his feet like a bolt. He waved his hand at the Cat as it took off around the side of the house.

Danny drove to the dorms and picked up Tommy, another member of the cast and from there they drove to the cafe. Tommy was a freshman at Central staying in Ellensburg through the summer only because of the theater production. He was one of the many thespian fanatics that Central had in its possession. Most college students had left town with finals over to travel back home and visit family. The majority went back to Seattle, about a third of what was left went to Spokane, and the rest went back to the other smaller cities scattered around Washington. Tommy’s family for instance lived in Seattle. Their ‘meeting’ took place at the D&M, a local coffee shop where they spent the first half an hour just talking and getting to know each other better.

Talk then shifted to shows the three of them had done in the past and that subject quickly shifted into talk of the new show they were going to be in together. Danny traded their print out scripts for fully bounded book scripts. Tommy and Dwayne were central characters, bitter rivals, and so they spent most of their time reading through the lines their characters had together. Danny coached them much like she had been when she had been an actress in Chicago. She spared no drama in her instructions and examples and while they made a bit of a scene in the coffee shop, everything went pleasantly well.